European Council: ‘Motorcycle Safety Must Be Part Of Road Safety Procedures’

The European ministers for transport have agreed to reform and strengthen road infrastructure management rules at a recent meeting held in Brussels.

The Council of the European Union agreed its position to strengthen road infrastructure management to reduce road fatalities and serious injuries.

The reform of the Road Infrastructure Safety Management Directive will extend the scope of the current rules to motorways and other primary roads beyond the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). This will contribute significantly to the improvement of road infrastructure safety across the European Union. The directive would also cover roads outside urban areas that are built using EU funding (which is something FEMA has been lobbying for extensively).

It will become mandatory to take account of vulnerable road users such as motorcyclists in road safety management procedures.

The proposal introduces a network-wide road safety assessment, which is a snapshot of the entire road network covered by the directive used to evaluate accident risk. Authorities will use the findings to carry out more targeted road safety inspections or take direct remedial action. It will become mandatory to take systematic account of pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users such as motorcyclists and other users of powered two-wheelers in road safety management procedures. These road users accounted for almost half of road fatalities in the EU in 2017.